Alice
by WizMonCruWil
Summary: When Hermione sees Neville after Dumbledore's funeral, their encounter leads to unintended consequences that affect the final year of the War, and after. Please enjoy!
1. Chapter 1: Before You Regret It

**Chapter 1: Before You Regret It**

Hermione Granger stood in the boys common room of the Gryffindor tower, studying the trunks and supplies before her. She had been tasked with packing Harry and Ron's things for the Horcrux Hunt they had just decided to embark upon come the fall, while the boys helped usher adult guests back to the Hogwarts Express following Dumbledore's funeral.

The silence was so unnerving and complete, that she did not even hear the approach of footsteps behind her, so lost in thought was she about what they would need to inventory.

"Hermione? What are you doing up here?"

She spun around, a hand to her heart, to find Neville Longbottom staring at her. "Neville! You startled me!"

He smiled apologetically, but his eyes still asked the question he had just voiced. Hermione shrugged.

"Harry and Ron asked me to pack for them while they cleared up at the funeral." Which was technically the truth, just vague.

Neville chuckled as he crossed to his bunk. "You do too much for them."

"They're not going to last that long out there without me..." Hermione muttered.

She said too much, wishing she could take it back, but too late. Neville had picked up on it. Turning, he frowned, "What do you mean, 'out there'?"

In all the years she had known him, Hermione had never been able to lie to the sweet young man standing in front of her. His piercing green eyes had never allowed a falsehood from her. So, even though Harry had expressly ordered that they tell no one about what they were doing or where they were going, she admitted, "Harry and Ron and I aren't coming back next year, Neville. We have to go... on a mission."

Neville drew closer to her, his eyes narrowing as if he was trying to peer into Hermione's soul. "It has something to do with Voldemort," he accurately guessed.

Hermione visibly gulped. "Yes," she whispered.

Neville stiffened as he took in this information. "You can't!" he burst out. "His minions are already looking for Harry; you'll all get yourselves killed!"

Recalling a memory from their childhood, and trying to talk Neville off the ledge before he went blabbing to anyone else, Hermione joked, "You're not going to threaten to fight us without a wand again, are you?"

Neville didn't take the bait. "Oh, we're far past that, Hermione!" he chuckled mirthlessly. "And what are you thinking, letting Harry and Ron talk you into this? You're Muggle-born! If the Death Eaters get their hands on you..."

"I'll be fine!" Hermione insisted with a brave smile.

"You don't understand! If something happened to you... how could I ever live with myself?" Neville looked strangely pained.

Hermione gazed at him curiously as Neville regarded her with tears in his eyes. All at once, several, disparate memories assaulted her and fit together to point to one conclusion. A conclusion she hadn't thought of before. Neville threatening to fight her and her friends during their first year. Neville always turning to her for help in hard subjects. Neville asking her to the Yule Ball, and then to Slughorn's party; she had turned him down both times on account of already having a date. And Neville's particular concern for her now, on a high-stakes mission.

Hermione understood and her features softened. Why hadn't she seen before that he cared so much? She sidled up to Neville, a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Neville... if there's something you want to tell me... tell me now before you regret it."

Silence. Hermione leaned forward eagerly, waiting for him to say the words, if not for her own peace, then for his.

He didn't say a word, just stared at her, pained. Sad that he could not clear the air before possibly not seeing her again, Hermione trudged past him.

A hand suddenly clasped hers, spun her around. She glanced back, surprised and yet hopeful, as Neville suddenly slipped an arm about her waist, pulled her flush against him, and kissed her soundly on her lips.

She had to at least admire his plucking up the Gryffindor courage, so she rewarded him by closing her eyes, leaning in and kissing him back. Her arms wound about Neville's broad shoulders without her brain telling them to.

Meanwhile, Neville's hands were doing some wandering of their own. A big, calloused hand with delicate fingers cupped Hermione's bum through her red dress, squeezing the accentuated flesh there. Hermione gasped into Neville's mouth, so that her lips parted for his tongue. Neville squeezed her ass again insistently, so that she assertively and boldly raised her leg to his torso, wrapping it around his middle. Her remaining foot popped, slowly rising backwards into the air. At the same time, Neville's other hand had found Hermione's left breast, grasping and fondling it.

Returning the favor, Hermione seized Neville's burgeoning erection, locking and grinding her pelvis against his. She leapt into his arms, folding her limbs all around him. The pair stumbled back onto Neville's bunk, Neville flicking the four-poster curtains closed with his wand before rolling Hermione onto her back and mounting her.

She willingly opened her knees to him, allowing him to settle in between them as they reverently undressed each other, still kissing tenderly. Soon, Hermione felt her insides burn as a bloated thing pushed into her undefiled vagina. She broke the kiss sharply to gasp, her eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. Beads of sweat appeared on her brow, her toes curled, and her fingers curled into whitened fists, bunching the fabric of the bedclothes in her grip.

As soon as she had become used to Neville inside her, she began to roll her hips to build friction, as he thrust into her in return. Hermione's purrs of pleasure soon morphed into moans and then wails.

"Mmmm... Uhhhh... UHHH! OHHH! Neville!" The bed creaked and swayed, her hips bucked, her breasts jiggled. Neville took a pink, erect nipple between his lips and sucked. Hermione just hoped with all her heart that Harry and especially Ron were being kept sufficiently busy down on the grounds. If they walked into this...

"Neville!" Her entire body suddenly seized as she orgasmed, shaking and throbbing with the pleasure of it. A moment later, Neville collapsed on top of her with a grunt, spilling his seed inside her. The pair kissed one last time and then disengaged their sweaty, naked bodies, hurriedly redressing.

Neville left with a parting, chaste kiss, which Hermione allowed. Thanks to some magic, she made up her lost packing progress. When Harry and Ron returned hours later, neither of them suspected a thing.


	2. Chapter 2: She's Yours

**Chapter 2: She's Yours**

"Harry! You're alive!"

She studied him closely as he stumbled out of the portrait hole above Aberforth's pub. He had aged quite significantly in just under a year's time. Her heart filled with concern at the ghastly gash across his cheek. With shouts of joy, Neville was soon hugging Ron and her too, so exuberantly that he didn't notice the little bundle he slightly squished between his and Hermione's bodies.

"Careful," Hermione warned him gently. Neville stepped back, startled, but grinned broadly at the sight of the little thing.

"Where did you guys pick up a baby?" he asked, amused.

"We didn't," Hermione whispered. "She's yours. I mean... _ours_."

When Hermione had first discovered she was pregnant, a couple of weeks into the Hunt, she had told Harry and Ron immediately. The whole truth - she didn't leave anything out, not even the identity of the father. In a testament to how much he had matured, Ron took the news surprisingly well, but that still didn't stop Hermione from feeling guilty. She felt almost... unfaithful somehow. Even if no words had been spoken, no actions or intimate physical affections displayed, she and Ron had by then come to a silent understanding that they were... something. Something more than friends anyway.

One rainy night in March, in their tent deep in the wilderness, Hermione had given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Harry and Ron by her side. Weeks later, the quartet had been captured by Snatchers and taken to Malfoy Manor for tortured interrogation. Bellatrix Lestrange had threatened the little infant, which had spurred Ron and Harry to break free, subdue her and bludgeon her to death before they all made their escape. Though initially less enthusiastic about Hermione's pregnancy, Harry had not minded using the little girl as an excuse to take violent action in this case. He had had a score to settle with the bitchy Death Eater, anyhow.

Back in the present, Neville had turned pale, backing slightly away from Hermione and the baby at the news. "What... what's her name?"

"Alice," Hermione murmured quietly. "After your mum. She's seven weeks old."

At last, Neville's eyes filled with tears, and he stooped to kiss Hermione on the cheek. "Thank you," he croaked out. "For giving her to me." Composing himself, he took charge. "We'll take her to Gran. She can keep the baby safe."

Hermione smiled in approval as she and her friends followed him into the passageway. She had always known Neville would have what it took to be a father, and only wished she had been able to tell him sooner.


	3. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Hermione adjusted the appearance of her oldest child on the steamy train platform. "Bag," she checked. "Jumper." Suddenly overcome, barely holding back a sob, she hugged her daughter and kissed her hair. "I'm gonna miss you."

Behind her, Ron looked on proudly but bittersweetly, as he held his and Hermione's three-year-old daughter, Rose, in one hand, and their sleeping one-year-old son, Hugo, in the other. Ron and Hermione had gotten married when Alice was only four. Since then, Hermione had been proud of and touched by how her husband had never treated Alice any differently than their other two children. Ron loved Alice like she was his own, too. Hermione now knelt before her daughter.

"Now remember: when you get to the castle, Daddy's going to be waiting for you at the staff table. His office is on the fourth floor, and you can always go see him in the greenhouses if you need help." After the Second Wizarding War, Neville had accepted the Professor of Herbology position at Hogwarts. He and Hermione remained good friends. Good friends who happened to share a child together and even though they had ended up marrying different people. Neville's wife, Hannah Abbott, was the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron.

"Hermione!" The call of her voice made her turn as Harry and Ginny Potter came running up with their three children. Their youngest son, Albus, and only daughter, Lily, were Rose and Hugo's ages, respectively. James, their eldest at five, came running up to Alice and hugged his older cousin.

"Uncle Harry! Aunt Ginny! What are you guys doing here?" Alice asked her godparents.

"To see you off, silly," Harry smiled, ruffling her bushy brown hair.

"Don't forget to give your father our love!" Ginny encouraged.

The Hogwarts Express's whistle sounded. "Nearly 11:00; you'd better get on board," Hermione encouraged. Alice turned to go. "Hey."

Alice spun back.

Hermione smiled. "No regrets," she disclosed, trying to sound hip. "from me _or_ your dad."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah, no regrets about _you_. I'm sure there is a misspelled tattoo he'd like to expunge from his record... but you, that's a no-brainer."

Alice frowned. "Where does Dad have a misspelled tattoo?"

"Ah, ah, ah - another story for another time. Possibly before _your_ first trip to Knockturn Alley. Safe trip, babe."

Alice turned to her stepfather last of all. He shifted on his feet awkwardly as he regarded her. Finally, Ron got out:

"I, uh... I'll always be here for you."

Alice gave Ron a warm hug and a kiss, bounding aboard the locomotive. Arms around each other, Ron and Hermione watched proudly as the train carried their daughter... to her father.

* * *

"Just snip at the roots... and you've got it!" Neville praised his daughter, as the pair stood in his greenhouse dissecting a vine of Devil's Snare. It was after Alice's first Herbology lesson, and she had a free period to spend some alone time with her dad. "So: how are your mom and Ron?"

"Great. They think Hugo's gonna be talking soon. He's already walking!"

"Good for them!" Neville laughed.

A moment of silence and then:

"Daddy?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm really glad I'm here with you."

Neville beamed. "So am I." Another quiet moment. "You know I love you, right?"

Alice grinned. "I know."

And together, they went back to studying magical plants.


End file.
